May 2002

Spider-Man

Went and saw Spider-Man this afternoon. It was fun. Good eye-candy, and a better story than mindless summer action movies are expected to have.

You know how all the big theater chains have these computer-generated animations to let you know the trailers are over, that you should go out ot the lobby and buy junk food, and that the feature is about to begin? Well, the theater I saw the movie at is part of some rinky-dink chain that has pathetic, PlayStation 2-grade computer animation. Playstation 2 animation is impressive when it is rendered live on a TV screen, but not when it is pre-rendered and displayed on a movie screen. I had to laugh, especially given the contrast with the excellent CGI in the movie. This theater is also notorious for its mildewy smell and handmade signage that looks like the manager’s kid did it. But, hey, it’s in the neighborhood.

globe of blogs | weblog

globe of blogs | weblog directory
I like the idea of creating a map between cyberspace and real-space. I ran into NYC Bloggers, which maps, well, bloggers in New York by their subway stop. That led me to the above site, which takes a more macro scale.

It would be nifty if we could overlay a map showing links between blogs (sort of like you’ll see here) with a map of real-world geography. Who knows what unexpected affinities we’d find.

McDonalds on Pluto

Nick Denton

…I’ve always loved the US. The history, the Federalist Papers, science fiction, Hollywood, quirky independent movies, Central Park, bagels, the familiarity of the Upper West Side, the West Wing, the New York Times on a Sunday, New York, all the more after September 11th, drinking places without carpets, strange food and strange sex, landing men on the moon, digital technology, the nations come together, the scale, the presumption of liberty, the sense of possibility, the eager embrace of the future.

I love it all, and not as a phenomenon to be observed from a distance, or contained within the USA. I want the whole planet, the whole solar system, the whole galaxy, to be full of bustling humanity, and if the price of that is a McDonalds on Pluto, I’ll close my eyes, think of a Tuscan trattoria, and order a Big Mac and fries.

There’s more–go read it–but I really like this. Except that I won’t eat at McDonald’s, and the minor point he seems to miss is that I don’t need to, and neither does he.

Consensus at Lawyerpoint

Consensus at Lawyerpoint

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed the “Content Protection Status Report” with the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, laying out its plan to remake the technology world to suit its own ends. The report calls for regulation of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), generic computing components found in scientific, medical and entertainment devices. Under its proposal, every ADC will be controlled by a “cop-chip” that will shut it down if it is asked to assist in converting copyrighted material — your cellphone would refuse to transmit your voice if you wandered too close to the copyrighted music coming from your stereo.

The report shows that this ADC regulation is part of a larger agenda. The first piece of that agenda, a mandate that would give Hollywood a veto over digital television technology, is weeks away from coming to fruition. Hollywood also proposes a radical redesign of the Internet to assist in controlling the distribution of copyrighted works.

This three-part agenda — controlling digital media devices, controlling analog converters, controlling the Internet — is a frightening peek at Hollywood’s vision of the future.

Just in case there was any doubt left in your mind that these guys are evil.

More test-drive fun

More test-drive fun yesterday. I drove a couple of Subaru Imprezas–the plain-vanilla RS, and the completely insane WRX.

The RS is a good car–it drives well, and Consumer Reports rates it highly for durability. It’s got a pretty potent engine for a car of its size, good handling, and that all-wheel drive really does make a difference, I think, on iffier maneuvers.

The WRX is another beast entirely. Its engine is considerably more powerful, its handling tighter, brakes stronger, everything. It’s very direct and as subtle as a sledgehammer. Tap the gas and get pushed back in the seat.

Both cars are definitely more on the sporty side–in both, you really hear the engine and are aware of what’s going on. This contrasts with the Jetta, which drives well, but doesn’t constantly remind you of everything that’s going on–it’s a lot more like a luxury car in that regard. Likewise, the Subarus have cheesy interiors, compared to the posh Jetta. Not badly engineered, necessarily, but obvious skimping here and there with vinyl sun visors, that sort of thing.

The RT Impreza is a good deal, and I could certainly content myself with it…but driving the WRX really captured my imagination. It’s more car than I need, and might even prove to be a bit annoying for long road trips. And it’s quite a bit more money, and this is a serious consideration for me. Though the price is reasonable for what it is–basically a race car disguised as a sedan.

Junk mail

This is truly hilarious.

Once upon a time, I was a member of the Japan Association of Translators. In fact, I served for a few years as a director, during which time I helped the group purchase its domain name and set up its website. So my name and address got stuck in Network Solution’s database. At the time, the president of JAT was Jeremy Whipple, a friend who lives in a suburb of Tokyo.

Now, somehow, Jeremy’s name and my address got mis-associated by direct-marketing scumbags, so I get a huge amount of junk mail and telephone solicitations for Jeremy.

But the best piece of junk mail ever just arrived. I’ve taken the liberty of opening it because it obviously isn’t meant for the Jeremy I know–a real human being–it’s meant for some completely fictional Jeremy. It’s from Dick Cheney, inviting him to “a private dinner here in Washington, D.C. [note the superfluous periods] on June 19th and also to ask you to serve as a representative of Austin, Texas at The President’s Dinner…In fact, a special place of honor has already been reserved for you to recognize your steadfast support of President Bush.”

Obviously this is a come-on for money, but the pomp and circumstance, the flourishes, and most importantly, the amounts are really impressive–they want Jeremy to spend $2,500 for a seat at a table. And I’ve never really discussed partisan politics with Jeremy, but something tells me he has not been a steadfast supporter of W.

Another sucky website

File this one under “web pages that suck.”

I accidentally surfed to the website of a company called IMJ and was blown away at the ingeniously awful navigation bar. It’s flash-based and the items move around under your mouse when you try to click something.

Test-drive day

Saturday was a very car-oriented day, which is funny for someone who tries to keep his car use to a minimum. But my own ratbox of a car, an ’86 Honda Civic with 176,000 miles and a weird smell, is facing repairs that are probably worth more than the car. It’s at this point that I start thinking about buying a new car. And, though money is always tight, I’m not just thinking about a new-to-me car, I’m thinking about a new-new car.

So Gwen, who is considering replacing her Honda as well (though not with as much urgency), and I went car-shopping yesterday, an errand made more convenient because our short-lists are identical. There are financing deals in the air, so it’s probably a good time to consider buying a new car.

We started at a very fancy luxury-car dealer in my neighborhood–it has Ferraris in the showroom. Obviously that’s not what I’m interested in: they’ve got a mini on the lot too. While we were looking at it, people in at least three other cars pulled over to check it out–some had obviously caught it out of the corner of their eyes, but one couple had made the trip specifically for mini-viewing. Nobody was looking at any Ferraris. The car is really cute, feels really well made and well designed. The back seats are laughable, but I guess that’s to be expected.

The problem is that minis are not officially being sold in Texas yet–this dealership bought the car retail (in Little Rock, I think), and trailered it back to Austin. They’re charging a hefty premium too–I think at least $6,000 above sticker, and if you ever needed warranty work, well, you’d have to go to Little Rock.

Next stop, VW. The Jetta Wagon was already first on my short-list of desired cars. A test-drive did nothing to change that. I drove a stick with a 1.8-l turbo engine, and was surprised at how smooth, quiet, and fast the car is. The car just seems really well put-together, good attention to detail. A telling example: the key is built into the remote-control fob. It’s on a sprung hinge, so it folds away to put it in your pocket. You press a little button on the fob and the key flips open like a switchblade. Slick. The whole car is like that.

Third stop, Mazda. We were both looking at the ProtegĂ©5, a fun-looking little wagon. The car was an ergonomic no-go for Gwen, who is short enough that when she’s driving, the relative positions of the seat, steering wheel, and stick make it so that she practically needs to reach behind herself to shift. I had no such problem with the car, but it was a letdown after driving the Jetta–it’s slower, louder, less refined, with less cargo space, poorer warranty, etc. Yes, it is a little cheaper, but the price difference isn’t enough to make up for its relative shortcomings. If I had driven the ProtegĂ©5 (yes, they really write it like that–the salesman abbreviated it to Pro5) first, I would have thought it was a nice enough car. Bad luck for Mazda I didn’t.

Then we went back to Gwen’s place, where I helped her wash and wax her car. It seemed so sad compared to the shiny, zippy cars we’d just been looking at. And don’t even get me started on my car.

Hell House

Saw Hell House last night. This is a documentary about a sort-of haunted house run by the Trinity Church of Cedar Hill, right here in Texas. The church runs this every year, and it’s a huge production all aimed at scaring people into being good Christians.

The movie was fascinating, disturbing, and funny. The documentarian avoided taking an angle, which is probably best. The Hell House project itself was incredibly weird–I think there was some wish-fulfillment on the part of the participants, and there was definitely a lot of cluelessness. One thing that struck me in the Hell House enactment was that the one character who had accepted Jesus was accepted by God into heaven at the end. But God refused all the others, accusing them of taking “the easy way out.” The form of Christianity that these people believe in is all about taking the easy way out.

Too much of a good thing

Just got back from dinner at Hut’s Hamburgers with Drew.

There were a couple of strikingly beautiful young women at the table next to ours, but what’s weird is they were both wearing so much makeup, so badly applied, that it made them look genuinely hideous. Was it done as a gag? I have to wonder. They were with (I assume) their boyfriends, who were completely conventional-looking.

Art, TX on the block

The town of Art, TX is for sale. Asking price $299,000.

Now, mind you: Art is barely even a wide spot in the road, located midway between Llano and Mason on State Highway 29. I’ve spent the night there, at the guest house attached to the Hoodoo Cafe.

Fairtunes to the rescue

OK, you can stop feeling guilty now. About downloading MP3s, anyhow. Fairtunes to the rescue. I like this. A website that let’s you make a payment directly to a musician in return for MP3s you’ve downloaded. This leaves the record labels out of the loop. Boohoo. If you donate even a couple bucks for one album’s worth of music, the artist is getting more from you than they’d ever get from the sale of one CD.

Technology meltdown

The New York Times has a review of the new BMW 745. In addition to pointing out that dealers allow new buyers 3 hours to get acquainted with the car before actually driving it, the reviewer mentions this anecdote:

My beagle, whose job description is “scan roadsides for squirrels,” is in the back, moving from one side window to the other. Each time he shifts, sensors in the seat take note, and the right rear headrest whirrs up as the left one whirrs down. For the next two hours, the headrests dance in tandem, as if trying to provide comfort for restless spirits.

I like high-tech gadgets as much as the next guy, but come on! This is technology run amok.

Arming the peasants

From the New York Times: A Faulty Rethinking of the 2nd Amendment

There is one striking curiosity to the Bush administration’s advancing its position at this time. Advocates of the individual-right interpretation typically argue that an armed populace is the best defense against the tyranny of our own government. And yet the Bush administration seems quite willing to compromise essential civil liberties in the name of security.

With all the other civil liberties George II (and even moreso, Ashcroft) is keen to delete, he definitely shouldn’t be so gung-ho about leaving guns in the hands of the peasantry.

De-spamming tools

We all hate spam, right? (I’m assuming that anyone who actually likes spam is probably a spammer, and therefore not the type to read this blog) We hate receiving it, and those of us who have websites have to face the prospect that if our pages contain any e-mail addresses, that spambots will attempt to strip-mine those addresses from our web pages, consuming resources on our web servers and making us complicit in their evildoing.

The simplest and most Draconian approach is to remove all e-mail addresses from your site. But that goes completely contrary to the two-way spirit of the Internet. You could just show a graphic representation of your e-mail address, but that’s inconvenient–your legitimate correspondents would need to hand-type it into their mail clients. (And what happens when spambots are wired up to optical-character recognition software? And what about people who have image-loading turned off?) Some people have gone to extraordinary length to foil spambots. One approach is to create a spambot trap, also called a tarpit. Another approach is to encode your address in a way that most web browsers will represent as a normal, usable address with a clickable link, but will confound an unsophisticated spambot. I was impressed by this one, which actually uses javascript and prime-factoring encryption to conceal the underlying address.

I’m telling ya, it’s a jungle out there.

Shadow of the Vampire

Watched Shadow of the Vampire with Gwen last night. Excellent movie. In a way, Willem Dafoe was wasted in the role of Max Schreck, because Dafoe is already creepy-looking, but the character had so much makeup on that even Britney Spears would have been creepy-looking. But he did a wonderful job with the part.

And while this is hardly the first movie where the story involves a movie-inside-the-movie, where the movie and the inside-movie have parallel plots, this one seemed to subtly blur the lines in a way that I like.

Aches and pains, two days later

I’ve noticed that when returning to some kind of exercise after a hiatus, it’s not the day after that I feel stiff and sore–it’s two days after.

So it is now with running. Various minor aches and pains in my legs. But you know what? The pains are symmetrical. This is a good sign.